Tuesday, June 16, 2015

There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact*

At the Research Digest, a site sponsored by the British
Psychological Society, there is an article titled: “Correcting False Beliefs
about Vaccines Can Be Surprisingly Counterproductive.” The brief articles looks
at the findings of a recent study examining how attempts to debunk myths about
vaccines, namely that they can give you the flue, can be counterproductive
among the most vehement vaccine skeptics. When presented with facts about
vaccines that debunk popular myths, the quarter of the adults who questioned
vaccine safety still did not intend to get vaccinated after being educated on
the topic. They merely came up with other new concerns about vaccinations. It’s
called the Backfire Effect.

The rest of the article discusses approaches one might use
to get through to these intense skeptics and avoid the Backfire Effect. In my
opinion, there are additional issues and concerns about myths and myth busting
that go beyond those discussed in the article.

The author considers the facts about vaccines that were used
in the research to be true, and I don’t doubt that they are based on solid
science. A problem arises, however, when the “facts” used to debunk a belief
are

Scientifically questionable

Only partially true

Being used to cover up something or for political gain

Actually beliefs themselves

In many instances, people disagree on the most fundamental
facts in our lives; Christians and atheists, conservatives and liberals,
socialists and capitalists, etc.What
one person believes is a fact is seen by another person as a myth. Even in the
scientific realm there is an ever shifting array of research and “facts”
telling us, for instance, that wine is both good for us and bad for us,
depending on the study. Many believe that what the government or the news media
tells us is factual, despite volumes of evidence to the contrary.

We should always rely on provable facts over superstition
and conventional wisdom, but we must also be careful in our assumptions about
what the facts are.